Smilegate said on the 24th that it will officially launch the Korea-style psychological horror game "The Alley" worldwide with developer AIXLAB and co-publisher (distributor) Thermite Games.
"The Alley" is a first-person psychological horror game in which users become the protagonist, Soyeon, and find themselves in a situation where a back alley they walked countless times suddenly turns into a strange, uncanny space. The only tool given to users is a smartphone. By photographing suspicious spots with the camera, users must judge for themselves whether they are "spirit traces" that cannot exist in reality or ominous yet explainable "phantoms."
Users can send their judgments by text message to a shaman grandmother and receive a reply. The more correct the answers, the closer they get to the truth, but each mistake brings the ghost nearer. A total of 64 anomalies are hidden, and accurate judgments on each one are directly tied to the user's survival.
Developer AIXLAB said it started from the idea that "real fear is closest to you," and aimed to capture, through "The Alley," the chills of a late-night walk home when familiar places suddenly feel unfamiliar. The game realistically recreates the scenery of Korean alleyways—narrow lanes, familiar neighborhood shops, and familiar sounds—while depicting how all of it slowly warps, realizing fear that arises from everyday spaces themselves.
First introduced in Korea on Stove in Oct. last year, "The Alley" now meets users worldwide on Steam with higher completeness. It supports six languages: Korean, English, Japanese, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, and Russian.